


Only on Condition

by whispythewriter



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Canon Era, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lots of Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-03-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 06:20:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1294621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whispythewriter/pseuds/whispythewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire survives and Enjolras doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only on Condition

Eight bullets. Eight bullets pinned him to the wall. Enjolras felt winded, but also something worse than that, a sensation of falling that originated inside him, as if he was collapsing in on himself. Probably because he was dying.

Shortly after the soldiers left, he slid down the wall, not by his own will. Gravity was dragging him down and he couldn’t fight it at all. And then he was sitting on the ground, head still bowed, hand still reaching for-

Where was Grantaire?

He’d been holding Grantaire’s hand just seconds ago. Where was it?  _He escaped. He’s run away._

_Good._

Enjolras’ fingers twitched. It was good that Grantaire had escaped, it was good that he would live, but at the same time Enjolras did not want to die alone.

With the greatest of efforts he lifted his head. It was a comfort not to be staring down at the blood welling through his shirt anymore. (So much of it. Enjolras did not like to see the proof of his own mortality. In his mind, they would still win and they were all alive.) He looked to the side and saw Grantaire lying a few feet away.

_He was supposed to escape!_

Enjolras opened his mouth to speak, but no sound would come out. Breathing was becoming a difficulty. Whenever he tried to gulp down air, a terrible, breathy rattle issued from his throat.  _I’m about to die._  He tried to reach out further, but Grantaire was too far away. Enjolras slumped to the side and now lay almost flat-out across the floor. Still reaching.

He just barely brushed Grantaire’s sleeve. (He left a red smear.) Enjolras tried speech again, and again it failed him.  _I love you, Grantaire. I only just realized it, but I do._

_I’m about to die._

Grantaire was unconscious, but Enjolras could see him breathing.  _He’s going to live._

_I’m about to die._

_But he will live._

Enjolras wanted to hold Grantaire’s hand - _I don’t want to go alone_ \- but he couldn’t reach. He’d already moved as much as his battered body would allow. He was warm and cold at the same time. Growing colder with every second, but the warmth clung to his clothes and skin (sticky and wet and a vivid red) and refused to leave him behind altogether.

Then there were footsteps. People coming upstairs. Enjolras braced himself, but they weren’t soldiers. People. A small, nervous group (three in total - two women and a child) going around to collect the fallen.

"Look! He’s still alive!" shrieked the child. He looked to be Gavroche’s age. The three rushed over, but Enjolras shook his head.

For the third time, he struggled for words. But this time he was successful. “Him- instead-” he whispered, each word a torment. Enjolras knew his words had power. Not enough power to make the people rise, perhaps, but enough to make them leave him behind. So he spoke as fervently as he could. Even as he gave away his own last hope, Enjolras clung to Grantaire’s sleeve all the more tightly. Grantaire was incapable of dying. He’d live.

Gentle hands loosened Enjolras’ fingers from the sleeve. Enjolras reached desperately for a moment ( _no, not yet_ ), and as Grantaire was raised from the ground Enjolras caught hold of his hand briefly.

A smile crossed Enjolras’ face.

He let his hand fall to the ground.

When they came back, Enjolras did not stir.

When they woke the man who had been saved, he did not understand at first. He would only ask after Enjolras, wanting nothing other than confirmation that the other was all right. He did not listen when he was told that the man in red had died. It wasn’t until Marius conveyed as much, in gentle tones, that the survivor understood.

Immediately he was out of the hospital bed and stumbling away, towards the door, into the street. Then he fell. Marius ran to him, but could do nothing in the way of comfort.

"Why did they save me?" he asked, when his sobs quieted to the point that individual words were decipherable.

Marius raised his eyes to the heavens for the briefest of moments.  _Why am I the one to tell him?_  he wondered. But despite his hesitation, Marius relayed what he had been told. “Because… because he asked them to.”

Grantaire let out a wail and clenched his hands into fists. He started to cry in earnest again and would not stop. “I- I didn’t want to- live- without- I- I died for him-  _with_ him- he- permitted it-“

"Grantaire. Please. It’ll be all right." Marius didn’t want Grantaire to keep on like this. Because if Grantaire kept crying, soon they both would. ( _My friends, forgive me…_ )

"I- should be- dead he- wasn’t- supposed to-" Grantaire was trembling. It was like when he was in his worst fits of drunkenness - barely comprehensible, moved by some strong and hard-to-understand emotion.

A week later, Grantaire vanished. Marius never received anything in the way of confirmation, but he knew it in his bones.

There are men who seem to be born the reverse, the obverse, the wrong side. They exist only on condition that they are backed up with another man; their name is a sequel, and is only written preceded by the conjunction and; and their existence is not their own; it is the other side of an existence which is not theirs.

(Grantaire, despite what he had said on the day of the revolution,  _did_  go to Enjolras’ funeral. He watched from the side, and then when Marius and handful of other mourners had gone he walked slowly to the graveside. He knelt by the gravestone. Reached out and brushed the lettering. Perhaps he was smiling.

"I’ll see you soon.")


End file.
